With Cal State Fullerton's recent acquisition of two buildings, the school also plans to expand its course offerings on the Irvine Campus. KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Cal State Fullerton in South County

1989: Cal State Fullerton opens its first South County branch in Mission Viejo on the southeast corner of Saddleback College.

2002: The branch moves to a portion of Irvine formerly occupied by the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which will eventually become the Orange County Great Park.

2007: Unsure of the fate of the Great Park project, the university begins a search for a new South County location.

2010: The university leases 70,000 square feet at 3 Banting in Irvine. Before the classes begin in January 2011, the school refurbishes the building, bringing it up to state standards for academic use and adding classrooms, computer labs, student lounges, a bookstore, a library, a fitness center and staff offices.

2013: The school purchases buildings at 1 Banting and 3 Banting to house its Irvine Campus. As the university expands to the site’s second building in coming years, the branch’s student body could double in size from its current enrollment of 3,700 students.

Source: California State University, Fullerton

Cal State Fullerton more than doubled down on its commitment to serving the southern portion of the county earlier this month when it expanded from leasing one building on its Irvine campus to owning two.

On Aug. 9, CSU Fullerton Auxiliary Service Corp. – a nonprofit group created in part to help the public university acquire buildings and land – finalized the purchase of two Irvine buildings at 1 Banting and 3 Banting, located just north of I-405 and less than a mile west from the Irvine Spectrum Center.

Cal State Fullerton has maintained a south Orange County presence since 1989, but its southern branch has bounced around from a corner of the Saddleback College campus in Mission Viejo to a site currently occupied by the Orange County Great Park in 2002, to a renovated Irvine office building that it has leased since 2010.

With the purchase of that Irvine building and its adjacent counterpart, the university has signaled its intention to plant roots and expand offerings in the region, said Susan Cooper, dean of the school's Irvine campus.

“We've been wanting to have a permanent home in south Orange County for a long time,” Cooper said.

“Our students are, many times, students who work during the day and take classes in the afternoon and night, so it is not possible for them to get to Fullerton. The traffic is just too bad. … (The purchase) lets the students know the programs will be in place. They're not going to go away.”

While the university currently occupies one of the site's buildings, two commercial tenants lease the first of two floors in the other. One lease ends in 2014 and the other in 2019.

When Cal State Fullerton began leasing its current Irvine location in 2010, it took four months to refurbish the interior from an office building into one suited for academic use. It is unclear when the university will begin converting the second building, but Cooper said the Irvine campus eventually will be able to serve 7,500 students, double the site's enrollment.

Cal State Fullerton reported 34,168 students enrolled in the spring.

With the university's recent acquisition, the school also plans to expand its course offerings on the Irvine campus. After 24 years of providing only upper-level, credential and graduate classes, the branch will launch freshman and sophomore courses when the fall semester begins Saturday.

The change eventually could allow students to spend their college career at only the Irvine campus.

New agreements with Irvine Valley and Saddleback community colleges will further this possibility by providing Cal State Fullerton access to facilities at the schools that don't exist on the Irvine campus, such as science labs.

“Were hoping that (the community college) students will get acquainted and want to attend Cal State Fullerton rather than some other four-year university,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the university has offered Irvine Valley College classes on its southern campus for the past five years.

CSU Fullerton Auxiliary Service Corp. paid $30.5million for the two buildings, financed the project by issuing systemwide revenue bonds and said it plans to pay the debt, in part, with rental income from existing tenants.

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